5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: Jesus Paid For Our Freedom | 5 Minutes with Jesus | March 18, 2026
- You are being
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- Held by the one who changed everything.
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- You will never, ever be alone.
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- You will always be loved.
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- The value that god placed on your life
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- Is a life of its own. son.
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- I remember when barry and i were
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- Putting our house on the market.
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- Asking the realtor how to price it, and she said
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- Its value is whatever anyone else is willing to pay for it.
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- That reminded me of a story i heard about a boston preacher
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- Many, many years ago.
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- His name was doctor brown, and this is what happened in
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- This church.
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- One morning he placed a beat up, bent, rusted old birdcage
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- Beside this pulpit one sunday morning when he told the story.
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- A little boy, about ten years old, was coming up the alley,
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- Swinging this little bird cage
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- With several tiny birds shivering on the floor of it.
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- Doctor gordon asked the boy where he got the birds.
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- He said he trapped them.
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- Doctor gordon asked what he was going to do with them.
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- The boy said
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- He was going to play with them and have fun with them.
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- The preacher said sooner or later you'll get tired of them.
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- Then what are you going to do with them?
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- The boy said, well, i have some cats at home.
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- They like birds. i'll feed them to my cats.
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- Doctor gordon said, son,
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- How much do you want for the birds?
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- Oh! he was surprised and hesitated and said, mister,
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- You don't want these birds.
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- They're just plain old field birds.
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- They can't even sing. they're ugly.
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- The preacher said, just tell me, how much do you want?
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- I thought about it, squinted up
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- One eye, and he calculated and hesitated.
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- And then he said, $2.
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- Doctor gordon reached center's pocket
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- And handed the boy two $1 bills.
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- And then the preacher took a cage, and the boy ran off
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- In a sheltered crevice behind buildings.
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- Doctor gordon
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- Opened the door of the cage, and,
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- Tapping on the rusty exterior,
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- He encouraged the little birds one at a time,
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- Find their way out through the narrow doorway, and fly away.
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- Well, then, the preacher went on to tell
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- What seemed at first like a separate story about how, once
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- Upon a time, jesus and the devil had engaged in a negotiation.
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- Satan had boasted about how he'd baited a trap in eden's
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- Garden and caught himself a world full of people.
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- What are you going to do with all those people in your cage?
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- Jesus wanted to know.
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- The devil said, i'm going to play with them, tease them,
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- Make the marry and divorce and fight and kill one another.
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- I'm going to teach them to throw bombs in one another.
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- I'm going to have fun with them.
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- Jesus said, we.
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- You can have fun with them forever.
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- When you're tired of playing,
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- What are you going to do with them?
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- Satan said, i'm going to damn them.
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- They're no good anyway.
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- I'm going to damn them and kill them.
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- Jesus said,
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- How much do you want for them?
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- Satan said, you can't be serious.
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- I sell them to you.
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- They'll just spit on you. they'll hate you.
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- They'll hit you and beat you.
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- They'll hammer nails into your hands and feet.
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- They're no good.
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- Jesus said.
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- How much?
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- Satan said, all of your tears
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- And all of your blood.
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- That's the price.
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- Jesus took the cage and paid
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- The price and opened the door.
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- That's the value christ places on your life.
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- That's how much he thinks you and i are worth.
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- I didn't realize until recently the awful
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- Significance of the fact that christ was crucified
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- On the middle cross between two thieves.
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- John calvin wrote by hanging him in the middle.
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- They gave him first place as though he were the thieves
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- Leader to onlookers or passers by that day.
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- Jesus looked like the ringleader of a bunch of crooks.
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- Even more devastating.
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- It looked like he was permanently cursed by god.
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- Devout jews
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- Coming from around the world for passover
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- Turned their faces away from him.
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- And paul reminds us why, when he was hung on the cross,
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- He took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.
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- What is written in the scriptures?
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- Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
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- But martin
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- Luther in the 16th century paints an even more shocking
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- Reality of what happened to jesus during his crucifixion.
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- He wrote, he bore the person of a sinner
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- And of a thief, and not of one, but of all sinners and thieves,
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- And all the prophets saw this, that christ was to become
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- The greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, robber,
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- Desecrating, blasphemer, etc.
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- That had ever been anywhere in the world.
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- I can't even begin to wrap my mind
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- Around that kind of love that would do that for you
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- And for me.
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- Not only that, from noon on that day
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- Until 3 p.m., for the first time in all eternity,
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- Christ was totally alone.
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- Do you remember when the cross he spoke to his mother and john?
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- We read
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- When jesus
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- Saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved.
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- He said to her, dear woman, here is your son.
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- And he said to this disciple, here is your mother.
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- God the father had turned away.
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- And now jesus was giving his mother to his friend
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- On the cross.
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- He was no one's son, and he had no father.
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- Whatever you and i face, we'll never be in that place.
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- You are being held by the one who changed everything.
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- You will never, ever be alone.
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- You will always be loved.
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- The value that god place on your life
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- Is a life of its own, son.
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- Let me pray for you.
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- Or how can we, with our human minds, even begin
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- To understand what you did when you hung on that cross
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- And you drank every drop from that cup of suffering?
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- We'll never know what that was like for you.
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- But you were willing to do that because you love us so much,
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- And you wanted to give us a way home to our father.
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- So we just pause and say thank you, thank you, thank you,
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- Jesus, for you think we are worth in your precious name.
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- Amen.
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